I upset a lady at GP surgery today

Classic Mumsnet. Ageism. Unnecessary aggression. Wild exaggeration. Oh, and more ageism.

You should have directed it at the receptionist, not shamed the patient who was trying to have a perfectly valid query dealt with.

Quoting her words almost mockingly, as if she's old and useless and deliberately sabotaging the queue.

The receptionist should have booked a call for the woman with whoever knows the answer to her query, either the GP or the in house pharmacist. And there should presumably be more than one of them on shift?

You should have said 'sorry to interrupt, but do you think you could get someone to get people signed in so we don't miss our appointments?'

You didn't need to basically say the person in the front was a time waster. If she had been 23 would you have been so caustic and personal?

I can understand why you were frustrated and I think the receptionist should have handled it better.

I don't see why you assume she was doing it to cause people problems though, if she was given the wrong meds that could be very serious. The attitude of 'silly old woman, just take whatever the Doctor gives you' is exactly what is wrong with the NHS bureaucracy. They make mistakes all the time, and it is always a battle to get them to treat a patient like a human being (particularly if you're a woman and elderly).

Good on you Op! I wish I had the balls because there have been many times I would have liked to do this. Firstly I don’t fully blame the elderly woman, they’ve probably changed the brand and she was a little confused, the receptionist should have told her to move aside so she could check everyone else in then continue to debate with her if she chose. But no, I reckon everyone in the queue wanted to do the same!

But what if the receptionist had said that and then the patient kept saying she wasn't told her medication was being changed repeatedly? Some patients/customers are really unreasonable and I think just want to argue sometimes.

After that long, someone needed to step in.

It wasn't working for anyone involved.

Quite.
In only her 3rd post.
I can understand people not reading every post in a long thread, but at least read the OP's posts.
SOME people just love to rush in with their valuable opinion before understanding exactly what's going on.

This is really weird. As a receptionist myself I would have given her five minutes max then asked if I could please check other people in. We are lucky that generally we have one of us for quick things, and one for enquiries though. It sounds difficult. Sometimes we get peole who are confused and we help them as best we can, although often it’s something like an adult social care referral.

She said it was broken.

Well done for speaking up !

Sadly, I think SOME elderly people love the chit chat as well as not being in tune with other people's needs (the bigger picture )

Another staff member should have intervened and taken her to the side .

Does your surgery not have a self serve computer log in to say you have arrived ?

😂

All that and yet the whole waiting room didn't stand up and clap.
Must gave been very disappointing OP.

That poor receptionist. Day from hell.

you did good. :-)

I suspect exaggeration to justify the uncaring and rude display of "assertiveness"

I was thinking I've just watched a whole episode of Frasier in that time!

Absolutely. It's the usual, isn't it. So tedious.

Yep-important that you emphasize “old woman”. Because young people are never pains in the arse.

Yep-important that you emphasize “old woman”. Because young people are never pains in the arse.

I can well believe OP may have been rude and over assertive to a fellow patient at the GP’s, but I just don’t believe a receptionist allowed one patient to hold up a queue of people for nearly half an hour whilst doctors sat in their surgeries, wondering where all their patients were.

Absolutely, you're right.
What a ludicrous situation.

GP receptionist here. We don't have self check in.
This was on the receptionist. She should have booked the old woman in for a phone call. If that didn't work and the woman wouldn't leave she should have still checked the people behind her in (its literally a button click) and either spoke to the old woman in between checking in or just been firm and say "i've booked you in for a call with doctor, I'm dealing with these people now"
Some people linger, these also tend to be the ones who call us all sorts of names because we cant devote endless time to them and sometimes have to be blunt.

This thread is going the way of the conversation 😂

• Is there not a check-in screen?

• Why is the woman's age relevant?

• What do you think the medics were doing in all this?

• Why didn't you ask to check-in more politely?

• 25 minutes?

All relevant questions, but being asked over and over, and going round in circles. It's what people do.

All the receptionist had to do was say to the older lady, 'These people need to be checked in, just let me do that then we'll try to sort this out.'